San Juan Bautista Chicken Festival

San Juan Bautista Chicken Festival, Sep 19-20, 2009.

This was not a very good show for the vendors and you know something was wrong when they lowered the booth fee. This town has several events during the year and sometimes vendors do somewhat okay. Such was not the case for this event and we could say that perhaps 3,500-4,200 people attended the event over the two days. Not really a spending crowd and I don't think that this event draws very many tourists. With proper advertising and a 'good drawing card' you could pick travelers off the highway. There were around 60-70 vendors and 4-5 food booths along with a little bit of entertainment, which livened things up a little bit. Perhaps the highlight of the event was the Chicken Dance contest and that certainly isn't going to draw people there. Seemingly a local crowd with maybe people from Hollister and Gilroy. Booth fees were reasonable, but there was a reason for that. Never travel far for this one, I didn't.

Please click on link to read more about the event.

http://www.starvingvendors.com/events_chicken_festival_2009.html

Manteca Pumpkin Fair - Oct 3-4

Manteca, CA

The annual Pumpkin Fair presented by the Manteca Sunrise Kiwanis, will be held on the first full Saturday and Sunday of October in downtown Manteca from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The Street Fair portion complete with pumpkin patch, kids zone, truck show, car show, motorcycle run, three stages and over 150 vendors will once again be located in downtown Manteca near Library Park.

To read more about the event, please click on the link below:

http://www.starvingvendors.com/events_Manteca_Pumpkin_Fair_2009.html

Salida Town and Country Fair and Festival

Salida, CA Saturday, August 22.


The booth fees for this event were quite reasonable. $75 for commercial, like us and $50 for A&C. Can't go too nutso over that? The information for the show said that it starts at 11:00 am and ended at 4:00 pm. So, we left home at 6:45 and drove down to Winchau's Donuts (spelling is correct.... formerly Winchell's but Chinese took it over) in San Lorenzo and picked up a bit to eat on the way. Salida is located on Highway 99, just south of Ripon and we arrived there around 8:00 So, if the show starts at 11:00 that meant we had 3 hours to set up. However, as we approached the event, I saw that 90 percent of the people were already set up and open for business. I most definitely didn't miss a darn thing. Amazing. I checked in and got my space number and was given directions to our space. I guess there were about 2 1/2 blocks of booths and I would say that 40-45 of them were vendors There were other non-profits and 5 food booths.





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Mount Shasta Fourth of July Festival 2009

We just did the 3-day festival up in Mount Shasta City.

On Wednesday, we left Hayward around 10:10 and had a few stops to make along the way. We arrived in Weed at 4:15PM and checked into our Motel and took a little rest. As we left the motel there were some drops of what I originally thought were rain on my windshield. But believe it or not, it was actually snow because of the shape of the crystals. I could not believe what my eyes were seeing. Maybe 5-10 small flakes that melted immediately. I looked over in the direction of Mount Shasta and saw some really ugly dark, ominous clouds surrounding it. We arrived in Mt Shasta City at 5:30 and began setting up our canopy. We stuck around until 8:00PM and didn't really accomplish very much since it was still quite warm. We also encountered a few sprinkles of something here and there and we had some threatening cloud formations. We closed everything up and headed back to the motel for the night.

To read more about the event, please click here.

Ceres Street Fair - Ceres, CA May 3-4, 2009

The Ceres Street Fair is coming up on May 2-3, 2009. Ceres Chamber of Commerce Contact them if you are interested in being a vendor.

Read our review of last year's event:

This is a small-town street fair that draws good-sized crowds from surrounding towns. Perhaps in the 30-40,000 range. I really praise the promoters of this event. This is a very smooth-running event which is always enjoyable to do. It was a little warm over the weekend and somewhat breezy at times. However, over the years, we have had temps up around 100 and super-hot; have had rain and even a Sunday completely rained out a couple years ago.

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Merced Hmong New Year Festival

Dec 19-22, 2008. Merced Hmong New Year Festival, Merced County Fairgrounds, 900 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Merced CA Contact Info: (209)384-7384 http://www.hmongfestival.com/EventManager/em

The Hmong New Year celebration has existed thousands of years and in recent years has changed considerably. The heritage of this unique celebration was celebrated on the last day of the 12th Lunar Moon each year. Hmong ancestors celebrated this event in their native country of Laos through many traditional activities. More on history of the Hmong Related links: Hmong Americans

Author Notation: For more information on events, please visit Upcoming Events in our Starving Vendors Website. We have reviews of shows, etc. Check DandL CREATIONS for great buys on shell necklaces, cowrie chokers, wrap skirts and a lot more, We also list numerous events in Events and Festivals